Hamilton left praying over Ferrari engine after Mexico FP2 power failure

Lewis Hamilton is sweating on the health of his Ferrari power unit after an engine failure ended his second practice session at the Mexico Grand Prix early on Friday, leaving him with barely one full session of running ahead of qualifying at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

The seven-time world champion lost power abruptly on the start-finish straight 28 minutes into FP2 and brought his SF-26 to a halt at the exit of Turn 3. He had been among the quickest drivers on the hard compound tyre and sat inside the top five before the stoppage, eventually being classified 11th on the final timesheet.

“I was feeling really good in the car,” Hamilton said. “It’s just my luck. We did a really good job in getting the set-up in a better place and yeah, it’s just really unfortunate. They’re still investigating to find out what was wrong and just praying that everything’s OK.”

The situation is compounded by a disrupted FP1, where Hamilton ran an aerodynamic rake on his car for the opening half of the session, completing only 25 laps. With Ferrari the only team not to field a young driver in opening practice — a session in which ten rookies took part across the field — Hamilton effectively has just one meaningful practice run to draw on.

“Basically I’ve only really had one session, because I missed pretty much at least half of that session,” he said. “I don’t think I need to make many changes to the set-up. I probably want the same because we were very quick. I think I already had a loss of power earlier on in the lap and we’re still quick. So I’ll give it everything tomorrow and just try to do the best with whatever I have.”

Despite the setback, Hamilton remained cautiously optimistic about Ferrari’s overall pace. “It obviously feels like we could be close to competing for the front row,” he added.

The picture was brighter for the Scuderia as a whole. Team-mate Charles Leclerc topped both Friday practice sessions, giving Ferrari genuine confidence heading into Saturday’s FP3 and qualifying. Whether Hamilton can join him at the sharp end of the grid will depend heavily on the outcome of Ferrari’s overnight engine investigation.